1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a foldable camera with a bellows, and more particularly to a flexible bellows of the camera capable of expanding when taking a photograph and of folding when carrying the camera.
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
A folding camera of the type to which the present invention is directed comprises a box-like main body provided with a hollow room in front of an exposure frame for exposing a photograph film accommodated thereon, a lens mount supporting a lens at the center thereof, and a foldable bellows extending between the main body and lens mount and permitting itself to be moved between an expanded position at which the lens is located in operative image-forming relation to the photograph film and a folded position at which the lens mount is received as one unit within the room of the main body. In previously known cameras of this type, a bellows is formed of a cylindrical, polygonal prism providing with many pleats thereon vertically to the light axis of the bellows, so that the lens mount moves with the bellows along the light axis of the bellows toward the main body and attaches to the main body through the bellows protruding from the main body, thereby increasing the thickness of the camera. In addition, to maintain the expanded position there is provided a means of one or more linkage members adapted to lock the bellows in the expanded configuration to locate the lens mount in that position, whereby the appearance and construction of the camera is complicated and trouble-some.
The essential objects of the present invention are to enhance the appearance and to simplify the construction and operation of a folding camera provided with a bellows supporting the lens mount, and also to improve the accuracy and positiveness with which the lens of the lens mount is located not only in operative image-focusing relation to the camera film, but also in accommodated receiving relation to the main body.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a bellows for use in a foldable camera which can fold in order to shift the lens mount parallel to or at a certain inclination to the light axis of the camera, or to revolve the lens mount in a certain angle against the main body to receive the same within a hollow room provided in front of the exposure frame, thereby facilitating the accommodation of the lens mount within the camera body.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a bellows for use in a foldable camera which is foldable by means of inward and outward folding lines provided thereon to form at least one triangle including a diagonal line, so that the bellows maintains itself in the expanded position due to the reenforcement of the diagonal line.
Briefly, these and other related objects of the present invention are accomplished by providing such a bellows for use in a foldable camera which is made of light proof material. Further, the bellows takes the shape of a hollow tube of rectangular cross section and of a hexahedral prism in the expanded configuration with top, right-side, left-side and bottom planes and openings at the both ends thereof symmetrical with respect to the light axis of the bellows, being affixed between the exposure frame of a camera body and the lens mount of a lens at said openings, and comprises in combination of first outward folding lines provided along all edges of each of said planes to fold each of said planes toward the exposure frame or lens mount, a second inward folding line provided on the top plane parallel with and adjacent to the edge affixed to the lens mount to fold the top plane in two so as to raise the lens mount against the exposure frame, a third inward folding line provided on the bottom plane parallel with and adjacent to the edge affixed to the exposure frame to fold the bottom plane in two so as to bow the lens mount against the exposure frame, a pair of fourth outward folding lines each provided diagonally from the upper corner of each of the side planes at the side of the exposure frame to the bottom edge of the same plane symmetrical with each other so as to form at least one triangle, and a set of fifth inward and outward folding lines provided on both the side planes to fold the side planes in association with the folding of said bellows material at first to fourth lines so as to pile up the material about the first and fourth lines between the exposure frame and lens mount.
These and other objects and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with preferred embodiments thereof with reference to the accompanying drawings.